Homeless man gets jail for tent city machete attack

Cut in work hours leaves him homeless, in tent city near Bethlehem, where he drunkenly slashed man.

Levine Koerner (left) will spend time in state prison for a machete attack… (FILE PHOTO, THE MORNING…)

March 07, 2013|By Riley Yates, Of The Morning Call

It was a homeless tent city in the woods near Bethlehem. Everybody had drunk a glass of vodka. Tempers started to flare.

Levine H. Koerner said he had bad blood with another homeless man, and got into an argument with him, then a fight.

In the end, police said, Koerner retrieved a machete and slashed his foe, Richard Heilman, in the face, leaving a gaping wound that needed surgery to repair a severed artery.

For the attack, Koerner will serve 41/2 to nine years in state prison plus one year of probation under a plea bargain Thursday that came as his victim couldn't be located by authorities for a previous court appearance.

It was a steep plunge for the 58-year-old Koerner, who had an apartment and a job with the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem before his hours were cut and he ended up living with other homeless people in Monocacy Park in Hanover Township, Northampton County, said defense attorney Joseph Yannuzzi.

"It is kind of a sad case, all the way around really," said Yannuzzi, whose client's only prior crime was a drunken-driving conviction.

After the Nov. 19 attack, police found a drunk Koerner, who admitted he was "attempting to cut [Heilman's] head off, and wishes he had killed him," said Assistant District Attorney Patricia Mulqueen.

Bethlehem police initially believed the attack occurred within city limits, but it was later determined it happened in Hanover near a walking path north of the 1400 block of Schoenersville Road.

Koerner pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated assault, with prosecutors withdrawing an attempted murder charge. The deal was cut in January at Koerner's preliminary hearing, after neither Heilman nor a witness, Mark LaFever, who is also homeless, could be found by police.

"Because of the complexities of trying to locate homeless victims and witnesses, we reached this plea agreement," Mulqueen told Judge Anthony Beltrami, who accepted it.